Media & Entertainment Law

Thursday Tidbits

Posted on August 06, 2009
lBelow are a few links to get your Thursday off to a good start. However, before we get to the links I have to talk about one thing I saw last night. I turned on the Barcelona - Seattle Sounders soccer game, only to find a real assault to the visual senses...

Cablevision to Spin Off MSG

Posted on August 02, 2009
At long last the long suffering shareholders of  Cablevision will see Madison Square Garden, the Knicks and the Rangers depart from the Cablevision balance sheet and operating statement.  Cablevision announced last week the intent to spin off MSG into a stand-alone company...

Buy a Soccer Club on Ebay

Posted on August 02, 2009
Up until last Thursday you had a chance to buy a League 1 English soccer club on Ebay if you were the highest bidder.  Bidding for Tranmere Rovers, in what appears to have been a genuine listing,  began at $10,000,000.  Peter Johnson, the club's majority owner had engaged Domoch Capital of the US to sell his interest in the club...

The 10 Most Disliked People in Sports

Posted on July 31, 2009
Forbes recently released its list of the 10 most disllked people in sports and surprisingly neither A-Rod nor T.O. topped the list.  I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at the guy at the top of the list, but he hasn't even been in sports for the last 23 months so you tend to forget about him...

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Book Review:You Bet: The Betfair Story

Posted on July 31, 2009
I almost never review or recommend books on this site that I haven't read but I'm going to make an exception this time.  I came across a review in The Economist that intrigued me as the reviewer described the book as recounting the beginning of online betting...

Why Big Ten Expansion Not Likely

Posted on July 29, 2009
Many fans and even a few coaches, notably Joe Paterno and Minnesota's Tim Brewster, have been agitating for the Big Ten to pick up an extra school so that it could hold a championship game just like those other conferences do.  Well, folks, it's not likely to happen anytime soon and that's not just because the conference is still smarting from being jilted by Notre Dame a few years back...

NCAA Has Spent $84 Million on Lititgation

Posted on July 28, 2009
The NCAA, which can't seem to keep itself out of court or out of its own way, has spent at least $84 million on litigation in the last 10 years, according to a study done by the Indianapolis Star.  This figure includes the reported costs of any settlements during that period...

NFL and Company Go After Delaware

Posted on July 28, 2009
What accounts for the phenomenal growth of the NFL in the last 20 years? Certainly television played a major role and in that regard one of the great decisions the league made was to divide the TV money up equally, going a long way towards ensuring parity, or something close to it...

Are the Nets For Sale?

Posted on July 27, 2009
The New York Post is reporting that Bruce Ratner, the commercial real estate developer and majority owner of the Nets has put the team up for sale.  While the Nets deny this, as would be standard operating procedure, Nets officials confirm that the team is seeking investors, usual code speak for a sale...

LPGA Leadership Challegene

Posted on July 26, 2009
We have discussed here before the players revolt that led to the resignation of former LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens. On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal ran an excellent story summarizing the challenges facing any new commissioner that the LPGA ultimately hires...

Former UCLA Star Files Class Action Against NCAA

Posted on July 22, 2009
It's July so it must be time for the NCAA to be hit with another class action suit.  The organization that can't keep itself out of the courtroom is at it again.  This time, former UCLA basketball Ed O'Bannon filed suit in US District Court in California seeking damages for infringing on players' rights by using the likenesses for commercial gain...

Mountain West, WAC Lack Cojones; Sign BCS Deal

Posted on July 13, 2009
For months, nay years, now we've been hearing nothing but whining out of the Mountain West and the WAC about the unfairness of the BCS and how the whole system reeks of antitrust violations. How the big boys have gotten together with ESPN to screw them out of the possibility of ever winning the national championship, not to mention those big paydays the power six routinely take home...

Cubs May File Bankruptcy to Expedite Sale

Posted on July 13, 2009
When the Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy protection, the Chicago Cubs, one of its subsidiaries was deliberately left out of the filing to facilitate its sale and not unduly complicate the Chapter 11 process. Now, The Chicago Cubs are exploring the possibility of becoming the first Major League Baseball club in 39 years to seek bankruptcy protection in order to expedite the sale of the club to the Ricketss family for $900 million...

US Olympic Committee, Comcast Form Olympics Network

Posted on July 11, 2009
The US Olympic Committee and Comcast earlier this week announced the formation of the Olympics Network, something which USOC has been working on for several years without success. Funny thing though, I thought we already had an Olympics Network - Universal Sports, owned in part by NBC...

LPGA Commissioner Is Out In Response to Player Revolt

Posted on July 10, 2009
It's US Open Week on the LPGA tour and instead of the focus being on the players and the difficulty of the course and how treacherous the USGA has made the greens and how tall the USGA has let the rough grow, all of the focus has been on the fate of LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens...

College Football Players Sue NCAA, EA Sports for Royalties

Posted on July 06, 2009
The NCAA, which proclaims itself the guardian of amateur athletics in this country and the protector of the rights of the student athlete, has been called to account once again. This time by student athletes, several of whom have filed class action lawsuits against the NCAA and Electronic Arts for appropriating their likenesses for commercial use without their consent and without compensation...

Tribune and Rcketss Family Reach Deal on Cubs

Posted on July 06, 2009
The Tribune Company and the Ricketts family have signed a term sheet on the sale of the Cubs to the Ricketts and forwarded it to the Commissioner's office for approval by the owners. This will end, for now, the Tribune Company's flirtations with other buyers as the deal hit a snag over the last couple of months...

Tacos Replace the Big Mac at NBA Games

Posted on July 02, 2009
Twenty year sponsor McDonalds is out at the NBA and Taco Bell is in as the league's fast food partner. The amount of the deal has not been announced but the deal has been confirmed by several sources and first reported by Sports Business Journal. It's a four year, all inclusive deal, containing ads on ABC, ESPN, TNT and title sponsorship to the All Star Saturday Night Skill Challenge and store promotions...

Supreme Court Grants Cert in American Needle

Posted on June 30, 2009
Yesterday, was the last day of the Supreme Court's term, and Justice David Souter's career on the Court before he rides off into the New Hampshire hills, and the Court handed down a number of orders including a notice that it had decided to grant cert in American Needle v...

End of An Era for the Big East and Pac-10

Posted on June 30, 2009
I shouldn't let today go by without noting the retirement of the commissioners of the Big East and Pac-10 conferences. Both men have been in their jobs for what seems like an eternity and I guess in the college athletics world, it probably is. Michael Tranghese has been commissioner of the Big East for 18 years, following Dave Gavitt, its first commissioner and Tranghese's boss at both the Big East and Providence College from where Gavitt brought Tranghese in to be the Big East's second employee...

Haveil Havalim is Now Up

Posted on June 28, 2009
Haveil Havalim, the weekly carnival of Jewish Blogs is now up and you can and should go visit it here. While this is clearly not a Jewish focused blog, last week's post on Omri Casspi and the NBA draft was picked up. There is a great collection of a wide range of post on various topics and you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy them...

Reinsdorf Submits Bid for Coyotes

Posted on June 27, 2009
I guess there was a real bidder for the Coyotes besides Jim Balsillie after all. Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf yesterday submitted to the bankruptcy court an outline of his offer to buy the Coyotes at the auction which the bankruptcy judge has scheduled for August 5...

Omri Casspi Makes History

Posted on June 26, 2009
Many of you might know that basketball is the second most popular sport in Israel and that Israeli basketball has long been competitive in Europe. In fact Maccabi Tel Aviv , the New York Yankees of Israel, was the Euroleague champion in 2004 and 2005 and the runner-up in 2006 and 2008...

Deal Reached to Save Unified F! Racing

Posted on June 25, 2009
Remember those dire predictions of the last few weeks that Formula One racing was never to be the same again as eight of the ten teams that make up the sport were leaving to form a breakaway tour, and taking many of the sponsors with them? Well, it's not going to happen...

Griffin Schools Jared (Yes, That Jared)

Posted on June 25, 2009
What do you do when you're the number one pick in the NBA draft and you're in NYC with a couple of days to kill? Well, you do what your sponsors suggest and one of Blake Griffin's, formerly of Oklahoma and soon to be a Los Angeles Clipper, suggested a game of S-U-B-W-A-Y (H-O-R-S-E) between Griffin and Jared...

Now, Yanks Are On to the Final

Posted on June 25, 2009
In what was a most improbably but well deserved upset of the number one team in the world, the US men's soccer team took out Spain 2-0 Wednesday in a Confederations Cup semifinal in South Africa. The US played with unaccustomed spirit for 90 minutes, taking the game directly to the Spaniards in sharp contrast to the Americans earlier somewhat listless efforts in losses to Brazil and Italy...

ESPN Grabs Premiership Rights Held by Setanta

Posted on June 23, 2009
It doesn't call itself the Worldwide Leader in Sports for nothing. ESPN walked away yesterday with the rights to broadcast English Premier League games formerly held by the now financially crippled Setanta, which had defaulted on its payments. The EPL conducted a hastily arranged auction which ESPN is thought to have won with a bid of about 90 million pounds, which, together with the 40 million pounds already received by the EPL from Setanta means the league is actually coming out about even with where it would have been under the original Setanta contract...

Protesting Iranian Soccer Players Banned

Posted on June 23, 2009
You may recall that some members of the Iranian national soccer team expressed solidarity with the protesters in the streets by wearing green arm and wristbands during their World Cup qualifying match last week against South Korea. The regime took its revenge announcing lifetime bans for four of the six players, the fate of the other two is not known at this time...

The improbable is Possible: US v Spain in Confederations Semis

Posted on June 22, 2009
Congratulations to Bob Bradley and the US Men's Soccer team for the most improbable run to the semifinals of the  Confederations Cup tournament now taking place in  South Africa as you could possibly imagine.  Listless, unimaginative and uninspired in a 3-0 loss to Brazil on Thursday, one could have expected the team to mail in today's game against Egypt...

Father's Day Links

Posted on June 21, 2009
A few links for your Father's Day reading pleasure - hope you have a Happy Father's Day:It's been a bad month for Manchester United; first Ronaldo and now Carlos Tevez is gone (Guardian)Jets join Giants in selling space on their practice jerseys (Daily News via thejetsblog)Cubs sale may be in trouble (Tribune via Abnormal Returns)NHL looking at Winter Classic Doubleheader (Globe and Mail)FIA says that a deal is near to prevent Formula One break-up; we'll see (Bloomberg)University of Georgia signs what may be largest NCAA media rights deal, at least on a per annum basis (Atlanta Journal-Constiution via Wiz of Odds)ARTICLEURL

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